


Infinitely together

by kathnatasha



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, One Shot, Post-Canon, Translation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 10:50:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5045473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kathnatasha/pseuds/kathnatasha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s raining when he walks out of the Azkaban.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Infinitely together

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Nieskończenie razem](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5058484) by [SzmaragDrac](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SzmaragDrac/pseuds/SzmaragDrac). 



> Special thanks to:  
> »my wonderful beta, check out her [ao3](http://archiveofourown.org/users/theweightofmywords/pseuds/theweightofmywords) and [tumblr](http://deadricdiggery.tumblr.com/)  
> »the original author for letting me translate this incredible fic.  
> I highly appreciate! x

**part one**

***

It’s raining when he walks out of the Azkaban.

***

The world is a mosaic of gray, cold and darkness. The sky is probably full of stars. He can’t see any of them, because heavy clouds block out the light of the cosmos. But he knows they’re still there (years ago he could point out all of their constellations).

***

The first step hurts. His joints crackle, noise blending in with the sound of rain. If he wasn’t freezing already, the cold water pouring from the sky would make goosebumps prickle across his skin.

***

He doesn’t wrap himself up in the black robes he received at his departure, because he knows it won’t help. He tries to brush off the pain in his bones (millions of needles digging into him), but after taking three steps he has to rest. Light strands of his hair are wet and fall into his eyes. He doesn’t brush them away with an impatient wave of his hand, because he knows they will disturb him again in a while. It’d only be a waste of energy.

***

He doesn’t look up to the sky, because he knows the Gemini constellation is covered with dark, gray clouds. He can’t remember the rest of star signs. Maybe there’s a Leo. Capricorn. He doesn’t want to remember any more.

Minutes go by (one after another, one after another, and again, and another, even more) damn fast (not like behind the walls he just left) and he knows he has to take the next step.

But it hurts even more than before. He bows his head letting raindrops fall on his now bare neck. Perhaps he’d care, if not for the fact that he’s already all wet.

***

Fifth step (fifth million of needles in his bones). Rest. Shaky breath.

He has to keep going.

***

He won’t be able to reach the last stones (where the sea foams, and flows, and invites). He knows he can’t do it. He has no wand, and he was never good at wandless magic.

Actually, now, after Azkaban, he’s not good at anything.

But the boat will wait until he’s reached it. He’s got time. He can stand for a minute. Or two (time goes by so fast when you don’t move).

***

Seventeenth step equals seventeen million needles in his bones. He clenches his teeth hard and breaths in deeply (yes, the needles are also in his lungs - there isn’t enough room in his bones for seventeen million needles, so they crawled all over his body). He tries to remember what star is closest to the Earth.

No, not the Sun. He hasn’t seen the Sun in years. Therefore, the Sun must have died.

Alfa Centauri? Maybe (Alfa Centauri is a multiple star, it consists of three stars). He doesn’t remember.  But he’s aware there’s someone in this world who knows for sure.

***

But he hasn’t seen him in many years. He had to be dead.

***

He sees the boat. It’s dark, brown, and it’s shaken by the waves. He thinks (it’s frightening, but he really thinks so) it may as well not be here. In that case, he would just jump into the sea.

But then he asks himself, isn’t the sea made of needles? If it is, he doesn’t want to jump into it. If it is, he wants to get into the boat.

***

But when he stands on the cliff ( _millions_ of needles later), he has no idea how to go down. The boat is small and appears to be distant when it wobbles on the water. The stones are big.

 _It’s just a couple of meters_ , he tells himself. _You’ve got to jump_ , he tells himself. _You can do it_ , he tells himself.

He knows he can’t. Once, he also couldn’t.

***

In spite of all, he jumps.

Landing hurts so much it’s almost blinding (there are so many needles that… _that if he wanted to write the number down _ with ink, it would end before he finished, even in the biggest bottle he ever had… / … _that if he wanted to write the number down_ with a pen, it would fray before he finished, even the best pen he ever had… / … _that if he wanted to write the number down_ on a parchment, it would end before he finished, even the longest roll he ever had…).

He’s lying in the boat, staring up. He wants to count the clouds in the sky (he would count the stars, but someone once told him they are countless. Oh, and there weren’t any to be seen at the moment), but he forgot what comes after seventeen.

How many steps did he take? Maybe that will help him.

***

If there‘d be some druid with him, maybe he would tell him what tree this boat is made of. He thinks it’s oak.

But after a second, he rejects this thought. He doesn’t know anything about types of wood. Maybe oak is not good enough to make a boat.

***

He doesn’t need to steer it. It sails itself.

He hasn’t got a bright future (it’s what his father had always promised him). The Sun has died, after all.

He wished he could return and be back inside the WALLS he left a moment ago (millions of needles ago, not a moment ago).

He lost. He lost the war, and he lost Harry.

**part two**

***

Harry hated rain. He always said: “This fucking water is fucked up. How can it just fall from the sky for a couple of hours with no break? Think about it. Is it normal? Water falling from the sky? No. This entire world is built fucking illogically. Think about it deeper”.

At the beginning, they just kissed. Only in the second semester, in the seventh year, he dared to answer that the only “deeper” he wants to experience, is Harry _deeper_ inside of him.

Looking back, he still thinks it’s fucked up that when they made love for the first time, it was raining outside the window. This entire world is built fucking illogically, indeed.

***

Harry loved astronomy.

He charmed his canopy in the Gryffindor tower to show the current view of the sky. He absolutely denied having to ask Dumbledore for the spell charming the ceiling in the Great Hall. He laughed at him.

He knew Granger had helped him. But when they were lying side by side, looking at the stars (Harry once showed him his star sign, Gemini), he did not think they could touch the sky together just because of Granger.

***

Harry adored sliding his fingertips across his naked chest. When he saw goosebumps rising on his skin he smiled and kissed him hard.

And he loved it. He loved lazy afternoons in the shadow of the trees (where nobody could see them), and he loved hot nights under the stars. He loved looking up at the canopy when he was coming (Harry so deep inside of him, so hard, but so tender - isn’t it fucked up that when we come, some white substance flows out? This entire world is built fucking illogically). Harry always joked about it, saying: “I’m such a good lover you can see stars when you come”.

But they both knew it wasn’t a real taunt (just like the stars on the canopy - they also weren’t real. It was just a stupid spell by stupid Granger).

(But they _were_ real).

***

When Harry touched his bright hair for the first time, he wrapped one strand on his finger and pulled his face closer. They stared at each other for so long and so he closed his eyes (when you do that and turn your head towards light, it looks like spilled orange juice on a black countertop, right?), and when he wanted to open them after several seconds of awkward silence (but he didn’t), he felt a light touch of warm lips.

***

It wasn’t an accident they’d run into each other. They hadn’t collided, hadn’t stumbled over each other (Harry had once seen his aunt Petunia watching a movie with a theme like this - he walked out of a building in a suit, looking into some documents, she was walking down the street in a flowery dress, looking at the sky. And of course, he walked into her. And of course, at the end they had a huge house and a couple of children. They had to fuck a lot to do it).

He just approached Harry and asked for a meeting.

_Tomorrow at eight?_

“I’ve got detention.”

_So after tomorrow._

“Alright”

_…But come._

A long look (no, not like in the movies).

“I will.”

His legs hurt from walking around in the common room. Three o'clock. Three oh one. Three oh two. Time goes by so slowly when you move.

***

Harry waited for him at the entrance to Slytherin. He’d not asked how he knew where to come. Dungeon walls were too hard to think about it.

Not hard _like that_. He hadn’t felt it because of Harry pining him to the wall. He hadn’t done it. They haven’t touched at all.

He just leaned on the wall and took a shaky breath. He knew Harry will wait until he starts talking.

And so he started talking.

***

Harry once asked him: “If you could choose your death, what would you choose?”

He thought for a long, long time. When you’re sixteen, it’s definitely too young to hear these kind of questions. When you know the war is closer every day, it’s definitely too much to hear these kind of questions.

 _I’d choose you_ , he said.

***

When they were seventeen, the sheets still smelling like their bodies (smelling like their first time, though they’d known it would come to it), he remembered Harry’s question.

 _I will always choose you_ , he told him abruptly, breaking the silence.

Harry smiled at him (no, at that moment he didn’t remember the talk) and kissed him hard.

The sheets still smelled, but the house elves washed it the next day.

***

They liked to spend their nights on the window sill in the Astronomy Tower. Harry watched the stars and he watched Harry.

Later on they liked to spend their nights on the floor in the Astronomy Tower (but only in the second semester in the seventh year). He spread apart his legs ( _so tenderly, so hesitantly, so slowly_ ), and Harry entered him ( _so tenderly, so hesitantly, so slowly_ ).

He preferred the nights in the Tower to the nights under canopy in Gryffindor, because the stars he saw were real. Not charmed by Granger. _Real_.

He wanted to believe they were also real.

***

A single cream card with family’s coat of arms embossed at the bottom right corner. Slightly rough texture, which, however, allowed to stroke the pen quickly without the risk of smearing any text. Wax seal broken exactly in half (thanks to a spell one of his ancestors came up with). Words written in letters without swirls.

***

 _It’s just a couple of nights_ , he told himself. _You’ve got to end it_ , he told himself. _You can do it_ , he told himself.

He knew he couldn’t.

***

Harry’s glasses reflected his face too often so that he…

He took them off too often (with teeth, fingers, once even toes, when Harry asked him: “Do wizards learn math?”. _Of course_ , he answered, _before Hogwarts_. “Then let’s play and count to sixty-nine”), so that he could…

His breath stayed on Harry’s glasses when they were so close to each other, so that he could just…

***

He made a list:

_No:_

_-he didn’t want to leave Harry_

_Yes:_

_-his father had sent him a short letter saying that he_ _KNOWS_ _and that… (he stuck Lucius’s message to the page here_ )

***

He made another list:

_-they kept their relationship in secret,_

_-he liked to sleep with him in his Gryffindor bed (through the sixth year and the first semester of seventh they’d slept like two innocents, only later **sleeping with each other** became actual **SLEEPING WITH EACH OTHER** ),_

_-he will always choose him, alwaysalwaysalways._

***

 _I’d choose you_ , he’d told him once.

***

And he did try to choose him. He tried to choose Harry, because:

Harry testified against him after he…

(he flung himself at the Dark Lord with bare hands and squeezed his throat until his face was becoming more… _RED_ … / … _PURPLE_ … / … _BRUISED_ …,  until he strangled him for… - if there’d be a prayer to Merlin, what word would it end with? “Amen”? - until he strangled him for amen… / until he strangled him for… - if there’d be a prayer to Merlin, what word would it end with? “Good”? - until he strangled him for good… / until he strangled him to… - if there’d be a prayer to Merlin, what word would it end with? “The End”? - until he strangled him to the end…)

…after he had killed the Dark Lord

***

“If you could choose your death, what would you choose?”

_I’d choose you._

***

He repeated those words when they were lying side by side (Harry was inside of him for the first time earlier – they could NEVER forget it). However, Harry didn’t remember their talk back then.

He remembered it ( **AFTER ALL THIS** ) after he had killed the Dark Lord.

***

Harry testified against him at the trial, but did not request the death penalty (Ministry decided that since the Great Hero killed the Dark Lord, he will also be the executioner, and he will throw - no, not “throw himself at their throat” - the killing curse on those whom **he** condemns to death).

> AS IF KILLING ONE MAN GAVE HIM THE RIGHT TO JUDGE OTHERS.

He _remembered_ their talk, therefore  did not request the death penalty.

***

Harry once asked him: “If you could choose your death, what would you choose?”

He thought for a long, long time. When you’re sixteen, it’s definitely too young to hear these kind of questions. When you know the war is closer every day, it’s definitely too much to hear these kind of questions.

 _I’d choose you_ , he said.

***

He TRIED to choose him.

It’s just that Harry didn’t.

**part three**

***

do you remember the first time he was inside of you you were so (pale/naked/wanting) and you pulled him towards yourself and kissed him and said yes harry do it i want you

***

do you remember your trembling wand when you looked at his hands squeezing another throat you were so (upset/scared/still-in-love) and regretted your wrong choices

***

do you remember sitting on the window sill in the tower harry tenderly (clutched/gripped/held) the telescope and looked at his beloved stars and you looked at him

***

do you remember when the dementors pulled (white/silver/transparent) threads out of you and when you screamed harry harry but harry didn’t come and you thought he had died just like the sun

***

do you remember when you didn’t look at the stars trying to convince yourself they are just as (false/dead/unimportant) as your memories.

***

you remember

**part four**

***

the bin in the corner of the room is full of torn pages filled with Harry’s sloppy writing. If this goes on, his pen is going to fray ( _the best he ever had_ ) and he won’t have enough ink ( _in the biggest bottle he ever had_ ) and parchment ( _the longest roll he ever had_ ) to write this letter. He tilts his head back, directing it towards the light, and sees spilled orange juice on a black countertop.

He’d once thought there are countless stars in the universe.

Now he knows that it’s the words he’d like to say to Draco that are countless.

**Author's Note:**

> I will greatly appreciate any feedback.  
> And hey! [i'm on tumblr](http://parseltongxe.tumblr.com/) :p


End file.
